Normal Light
by Calypso Diangelos
Summary: Christine once begged Raoul for a life with Normal Light, but the real thing is never what we concieve....


Normal Light

By: Calypso

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Set after the ALW Musical

AN: Well, now that I'm done with From Darkness till light, I don't think I'll be writing any more novel length fics until later this summer. However a friend of mine (whom I converted to a phantom phan) has requested permission to **write a sequel to 'From Darkness Till Light'**. I know her from having gone to high school with her and can testify that she's more then just a decent writer. I've told her that she can write it provided I have editing rights (although we may end up co-writing it if I have time.) Anyway, I hope you enjoy this little drabble you can consider it a sequel to 'To Let You Go' if you want to but it's really meant to stand alone.

Christine

The sunlight in the church is bright, illuminating the numerous flowers and the many Parisian Citizens who have turned up for what the ever paper in Paris has dared to term the most 'scandalous marriage of the decade'. The light gives the white silk I wear a soft gentle glow, as if it were clouds and not white silk skirts that float about me. Everything is bathed in its soft welcoming glow, from the rafters to the alter there is nothing but light, a testimony to this beautiful day. A perfect day for a perfect wedding, the kind that little girls and young women dream about. I dreamed of a wedding like this once, I dreamed that dream until not so long ago.

I can see Raoul's smiling eyes through my veil and I can tell that there is light in his face as well. Amongst these happy people, here in this church I am not the happy bride, but rather the corpse who watches someone else dream wedding transpire below. A mourning spirit floating above the rejoicing people below. The minister's words wash across my conciseness, and for once the house of God is not a place of refuge to my crying soul. For once, the truth that dreams do come true can offer me no comfort.

I know Raoul will be a loving husband, I know he will keep the vows he makes to me today, that he will give me the normal light I once begged him for. He's a good man, an honorable one who will keep me safe and well cared for, but that is no longer what I long for. This ring he gives me is not a sign of faith, not a promise of hope, but a shackle of captivity.

Before me I see not a beautiful bountiful life, but a long living death stretching out like the vast endless oceans. A glass tomb in which there is no music, where I can see the people around me dancing and singing while in my ears there is only silence. Too much silence. There is no symphony for me here, not the violin melodies that my father once played, or the haunting songs of my Angel of Music.

My Angel has been dead a month now, yet every morning I wake expecting to find him beside me, expecting to hear his whispers in my ear or his singing in my mind. I told Raoul once that I feared Erik always being there singing songs in my head. Yet without those songs what I feel is a consuming silence that burns through my soul. The resounding pain of being alone even when surrounded by people. Of craving darkness when you are bathed in light.

Raoul

Today should've been one of the happiest days of my life; today Christine should've been bathed in the glow of joy. Yet what I find is nothingness, in Christine's eyes I see nothing but a vast indifference. Is this what every man's wedding day is like? Can this possibly be the majestic affair what writers have praised through both poetry and prose through out the ages?

I see my bride before me and I see the opportunities before us. Yet too often does melancholy plague the beautiful eyes I have so long loved, too much darkness is there a spirit meant to live in light. I had hoped our wedding would take the despondent numbness out of her heart, that knowing I loved her would give my beloved newfound hope. But I was wrong.

She wears her wedding veil too much like she would her funeral shroud. In my hand the delicate white cloth is heavy and her half-hearted smile is not brilliant but cold. Her lips are not warm and welcoming but resigned and hopeless. They do not take the love I hand to her so readily but instead throws it back at me. Deflecting my emotions like a shield that she does not know she wears. I draw away from her and abruptly I can see just who it is haunts her eyes.

Erik. Her angel. God, will he not leave us be? Will he never simply let us live the lives we've wanted so long? I can tell that it is not the expensive orchestra I hired she hears, but the mad melody of the organ he played. It was never our vows she spoke, but the words to the strange duets they sang together. I know it is Erik in her heart, but I also know that she is the one in mine.

I love her with all my heart, I have since we were children. What I want for us is simple, a life that we can live as one and a happy home in which we can raise our children in the way that we ourselves was raised. She shared that dream once, I can remember her telling me that she would be happy if I could love her and spend every day and every night with her. So why then does she not rejoice in what we have achieved?

I lead her out of the church, out to the carriage that awaits us, towards the new life that we will make together. There is another vow I will make before God this day, I vow that I will love her, that I will make her forget the angel from hell. That one day I will see her true smile again. One day, she will welcome the normal light I have brought her.

~Fini~


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